A group of 14 had a very relaxing day in perfect autumn weather. We started at a remnant woodland travelling stock reserve near Murrumbateman, where there were good numbers of birds, including a pair of Jacky Winters and Scarlet Robins, a flock of 12 Varied Sittellas moving through making their high pitched 'corkscrew' whistles and a large number of Grey Fantails also moving through. The group atlassed my regular 2-ha site there.
Then we atlassed along the Old Gap Road (open grazing country) into the southern end of Mundoonen Reserve on the Mundoonen Range, a mostly Red Stringybark and Scribbly Gum forest with some Red Box and Broad-leaf Peppermint. There were large numbers of Brown Thornbills around as well as mixed flocks of other small birds, including Yellow Thornbills. The highlight was hearing an Owlet Nightjar call a couple of times, conveniently as we were having lunch.
We made a brief visit to the northern end of the reserve off the Hume Highway and back through grazing country along the Lade Vale Road and Gunning-Gundaroo Road, with a Black-shouldered Kite, two Brown Falcons and a large group of Little Ravens being the highlights on the way.
A final stop was made for afternoon tea south of Gunning at a Yellow Box woodland site. It was fairly quiet (although this spot usually has Hooded Robins, Brown Treecreepers and Diamond Firetails around).
While we did not record anything out of the ordinary, it was a very pleasant day and a good introduction to some of the back roads in this area between Yass and Gunning, and data were collected for 12 COG grids.
Jenny Bounds